Thursday, May 26, 2016

Now that Nadya is Back, Some Worry Ukrainians Will Soon Forget Her and the West Forget Ukraine

Paul
Goble

Staunton, May 26 – A day after Nadya
Savchenko returned to a hero’s welcome in Ukraine and when many are predicting
she will re-energize Ukrainian political life and even ultimately become president
of that country, some are worrying that Ukrainians will soon forget her and
that the West will forget Ukraine.

Vladimir Putin may be counting on
both, hoping that his decision to send her home, however unpopular it may be
among many Russians now and however much attention she is receiving from
Ukrainians and people around the world, will contribute to confusion in Kyiv
and ever less willingness in the West to support Ukraine against his
aggression.

Either of these things would be a
tragedy, but neither can be excluded given the short attention spans of people
in both places. Instead, they can be blocked only by recognizing that they are real
dangers and that Moscow and pro-Moscow groups in Russia, in Ukraine and in the
West will do everything they can to promote them.

Two articles on the Novy Region 2
portal today thus provide a necessary warning of what may happen after the
celebrations die down, as well as an important part of the explanation as to
why Putin released the Ukrainian pilot now.

There will be “weeks of euphoria,”
and then quietly and in an almost unnoticed fashion, “a process of
de-hero-ization” in which this or that politician or journalist will complain
about this or that word spoken by Savchenko or action taken by her and in which
Ukrainians will simply turn away and focus on other issues.

Matviyenko also cites the argument
of Ukrainian political analyst Aleksey Golobutsy that Savchenko’s return was critically
important for Ukraine and now the most important task is that she “remain a
moral authority for all of Ukraine,” rather than being drawn into the political
fray and inevitably reduced to a politician like any other.

Indeed, he argues, her return may be
a turning point or at the very least a warning bell for Ukrainians.“There is the opinion that the US State
Department was involved in the pardoning of Nadezhda Savchenko, and it is not
excluded that John Kerry and Victoria Nuland used their influence on Russian
President Vladimir Putin.”

In that event, Shro says, “it is
completely real that Russia by this action engaged in a kind of bargaining to
extinguish its [current] sharp conflict with the EU and the US” which involves
sanctions.These aren’t going to be
lifted immediately, he continues, “but the sharpness of the conflict will be
extinguished and the Russian-Ukrainian war frozen.”

The reasons for this are obvious, he
continues. The US “is not ready for decisive and tough actions toward Russia,”
and many in Washington believe that it should cede the Ukrainian problem to
Europe and “distance itself from all European problems focusing instead on its domestic
problems” given that Ukraine has not reformed as much as Washington wanted.

Moreover, Shro says, the US has
other geopolitical problems, including ISIS, the future of the EU if Britain
votes to leave that bloc, as well as ethnic and religious problems within
Europe.In this situation, he argues, “freezing”
the Russia-Ukraine conflict and thus putting it on the back burner looks like a
good choice.

And all this is complicated by the
US presidential elections. President Barack Obama hasn’t been prepared to take
decisive actions against Russian aggression, Shro says, but it is far from
clear whether his successor will change that vector or perhaps decide to “sacrifice”
Ukraine in order to restart relations with Moscow.

In that event, Shro says, Ukraine
will be cast in the role of “’a swamp for Russian tanks’” while NATO builds up
its “’Eastern Wall’ in the Baltic countries, Poland and Romania,” an
arrangement that would leave Ukraine in a dangerous position.Of course, he
concludes, “support for Ukraine won’t stop, but its role will be as a ‘gray
zone’ buffer between NATO and Russia.”